Dyson Vows to Take Siemens and Bosch to the Cleaners Over Alleged Volkswagen-esque Cheating

There’s drama, real drama, in the world of vacuum cleaners. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), nobody’s been gobbled up by an oversized Henry Hoover. Rather, Dyson has laid into its rivals, accusing Siemens and Bosch of cheating power-testing regimes, in a similar manner to Volkswagen with its emissions software and, going back a couple of years, Samsung with mobile phone benchmarks (allegedly).

Sir James Dyson reckons his competitors have rigged their wares, in order to trick testers into awarding them higher energy efficiency ratings than they deserve. He says that Siemens' Q8.0 and Bosch's GL80/In'Genius ProPerform machines, both of which sport AAAA ratings, require 1,600W of power in real-world conditions, rather than the 750W recorded under test conditions.

"Bosch has installed control electronics into some of its machines to wrongfully increase energy consumption when in use -- to cheat the EU energy label,” said Sir James Dyson, presumably while shaking all over with rage. “Their behaviour is akin to that seen in the Volkswagen scandal. It seems that industry is rife with manufacturers engineering to find their way around tests, rather than engineering better, more efficient technology."

Bosch and Siemens, however, maintain their innocence. "All Bosch and Siemens vacuum cleaners are measured in compliance with European energy regulations,” said the companies in a joint statement. “Appliance performance at home is consistent with laboratory performance - and any suggestion to the contrary is grossly misleading. We are committed to providing full disclosure on the energy ratings and broader performance of our vacuum cleaners so that consumers can make an informed decision."